Shatters
by Bik
Summary: A Post-Apocalyptic Spike/Anya story about their return to Sunnydale five years after they lost the people they love.


Disclaimer: All this characters are owned by the wondrous Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. They are merely my play things. :-)  
  
Rating: PG-13 for allusions to violence and sexual references.  
  
Reviews: Yes please!  
  
Setting: Post-Apocalyptic (assume everything that happened in season six already happened- i.e. Anya's a demon and Spike's souled).  
  
Plot: Set five years after a huge battle in which many of the Scoobies died but not Spike and Anya who revisit Sunnydale.  
****  
~Shatters~  
  
  
"Couldn't stay away either?" Spike asked. He flicked on his lighter which glowed eerily in the still darkness.  
  
"Just wanted to see if anyone was still here. Alive," Anya replied. Her voice seemed as lifeless as her eyes.  
  
"Or at least who has a good long term memory," Spike said, trying to lighten the mood.  
  
They stood together on a cliff overlooking the desolate town they once lived in, fought in. It was amazing to think that it ever just ended, the fighting. When it began, that fight just seemed like any other. They had their friends, they could do it. How could everything end so quickly?  
  
"I guess you had to be immortal to survive a fight like that," Spike muttered.  
  
"Not even a slayer with all her strength could have survived it," Anya observed softly.  
  
In the silence, they reflected on the memories they usually tried to shut out. It was all so surreal. So much was going on during the fight. They knew the possibility of separation was a great one. That's why the deal was made in the first place, to see who survived. The meeting spot chosen was a once lush cliff overlooking the town, far from where the fight took place. Now all it overlooked where a few blinking lights; fireflies in the vast darkness. Darkness that infected the stones of the old church that was burned in the fury. Darkness from the moving bodies below, reluctantly admitting their positions. Darkness from the gloom they all felt.  
  
Now, after a silent agreement, Spike and Anya slowly descended the bare cliff. There was reluctance in both of their walks from having to return to the place of so many bad memories. But they had to go, see if anyone would stay in that miserable place.  
  
Demons. That's who would stay there. But even they were scarce. Running about the streets, ducking into broken down shops, what remained of them, like bugs frightened to be crashed. They shouldn't have fear, though. The slayer was gone, at least from that town. If Faith was still alive or a new slayer, Spike and Anya wouldn't know. Slayers were obsolete in the new world.  
  
"I heard all the Watchers from the council were dragged out of their homes and tortured in the streets in front of their children," Anya whispered as she and Spike sat at a decaying demon bar, the only kind of bar in Sunnydale.  
  
"Wouldn't be surprised," Spike muttered, taking a swig of his cheap beer. "Never minded a bit of chaos but this is just..."  
  
The sentence was left hanging, unfinished, in the air. There were a lot of inhabitants of the town and there wasn't much else to do there besides drinking but still the bar seemed eerily empty.  
  
"How's your job going?" Spike asked lightheartedly.  
  
Anya shrugged her shoulders.  
  
"Same old. It's amazing to think that with the few people left in the world they still feel the need to hurt each other," Anya said sadly.  
  
A small pile of beer labels had formed by Anya's elbow on the counter. Three Jack Daniel's labels were shredded to pieces by the uneasy Vengeance Demon. It's not that the demons around her made her nervous, even the large eyed and slimy bartender. The feel of the town itself that had taken so much from her threatened to overwhelm her again. It started when she stood with Spike on the cliff. Just looking at it, taking it in, hurt her. Walking through the streets was even worse. Demons littered the streets. The novelty of having no people there had slowly lost it's joy. There were no vampires in Sunnydale anymore besides the one seated next to her. Many other demons were affected by the change also. Now, most of the demons remaining couldn't hurt a fly. Scavengers, claiming someone else's victory as their own.  
  
The stores were all burnt up or broken down. Anya couldn't even guess where the energy came from to fuel the few remaining lights left. Unfortunately, among the remaining lights were many street lights to reinforce the disgusting conditions the town lay in. Blood from fights speckled the stones. Broken jagged pieces of glass were a hazard for even short walks. And cars lay like mangled bodies, pieces strewn about. The most depressing detail of it all was seeing a place very dear to Anya's heart burnt down almost completely. The Magic Box. It was only one landmark of the many to see on her visit back. But after feeling the pain she felt while gazing helplessly at it, she decided to shorten her visit.  
  
"How do you still do?" Spike wondered aloud suddenly, pulling Anya back from the horror she'd seen earlier to the ones around her currently.  
  
"What?" Anya asked, looking to her forlorn friend.  
  
"The killing. How do you keep doing it after... after that."  
  
"I don't," Anya admitted after a moment.  
  
"You mean...?"  
  
"I still grant wishes," Anya said quickly, "but I feel horrible doing it. It was the only thing that kept me alive, my demon powers. I just couldn't..." Anya looked down guiltily. She felt selfish and it disgusted her. Instead of giving up harming humans out of respect, she kept doing it to stay alive. The fight might be over but the pain continued. Coming back to Sunnydale had nothing to do with this constant ache. The world beyond it was bad enough, not as over-run with demons as the place where it started but bad enough. "I want to be alive. Even in this pain. I have to go on," she murmured.  
  
Spike looked tenderly at the broken women. She was a strong person, not that the others weren't. But she almost never let that strength waver. He'd seen her during the fight, her hair streaming and her clothes torn, bloody gashes seeping over the remaining cloth. But she looked determined throughout it all. Now she seemed to finally let it all tumble out.  
  
"That's all that can be done," Spike said soothingly, "stay alive."  
  
"No matter what?" Anya asked softly, tears glittering in her eyes.  
  
Not knowing what to say, Spike let silence grow between them. The pain the girl beside him felt was starting to catch onto him.   
  
Buffy was the one who told them to leave Sunnyvale if they lived and knew of no other survivors. And Spike told himself that he would feel nothing if the right circumstances came about causing him to leave. He was good at it to, for a while. He drifted from town to town for some time after he left. He even attempted to form a clan of strong fighters. In his mind, if he did, everything would be the same again. During it he was fine. It wasn't until he found a good fighter, a blonde women, did he break down. Besides the color of her hair, the women bore little resemblance to the women he loved so deeply so long ago but it was enough. That was when he knew he couldn't pretend any longer that he didn't care. Knowing that the appointed time of meeting the other survivors, if there were any, didn't help Spike after he discovered his long denied feelings.  
  
"Can you still...?" Anya asked after forcing back her tears before any had even brushed her cheeks.  
  
Spike just shook his head.  
  
"I do everything but the killing," he said. "Bite and then drink until they can't loose anymore. Just staying alive. Good thing the chip burnt out long ago, butcher shops aren't exactly thriving these days."  
  
"It's hard enough hurting humans let alone killing them," Anya observed.  
  
There was silence again. And then, in the corner of the bar, a fight broke out. The only two other demons there were arguing over who killed who in the Final Battle.  
  
"I heard the girl turned on the others," said a slimy green demon.  
  
"The slayer? Turning on the people who fought wish her? No way," the frumpier demon with a scarred up face cried in shock.  
  
"First it was the boy, the weak one. A demon got her in a trance and told her to do it," the green one continued to gossip.  
  
"Oh right, I heard she first removed his-"  
  
"Let's go," Spike requested softly, seeing the tears looming again in Anya's eyes.  
  
Tearfully, Anya nodded and slowly removed a wad of cash from her pocket. Spike stopped her hand, letting his hand linger against it.  
  
"I got this," Spike whispered, his hand still on hers.  
  
She didn't move away from his touch as he took out some money and threw it on the table. The heavy beating of her heart helped to block out the demon's talking. Some words still fell through the beating. Hacking. Splattering. Dangling. Maimed.  
  
Spike jumped slightly when Anya suddenly grabbed his hand which was still hovering by hers. It was a desperate act made in attempt to block everything out.  
  
"Do you want to go somewhere?" She murmured seductively as she pulled him out of the bar and into the cool night's air.  
  
A look of shock followed by a dim look of understanding crossed Spike's features. She pulled his body to hers, embracing him hungrily.  
  
"Where?" Spike asked as he ran his hand down her bare arm.  
  
She shivered under his touch.  
  
"Anywhere," she breathed into his ear before kissing it tenderly.  
  
They found a hotel that was probably run down even before the Final Battle. A more comfortable environment wouldn't have had an effect on how the night transpired. They were both hungry and lonely but there was a fleeting moment of recognition. Recognition of something deeper than loneliness, sadness, or lust. Something more than an escape from the pain.  
  
Afterwards, they slept. Dawn was drawing near, Spike wouldn't have been able to leave anyway. Anya was the first to wake. She lay there a while in the afterglow. And even after so many years, she was still amazed that vampires didn't breathe. Spike was completely motionless when he slept. His bare chest didn't even rise and fall. He looked like he was dead. He was dead. Mostly. But something of him was there. She realized suddenly she needed that something with a selfish, desperate want. She needed him.  
  
After this realization, she wanted to shake Spike awake and cover him with more kisses. But, although she wasn't a patient person, she waited for his dark lashes to flutter open on their own.  
  
"Morning, luv," Spike murmured lazily to the still nude Anya before him. Her light brown hair was ruffled and he reached out to smooth it gently. Or at least that's what she thought. He really just wanted to feel her soft hair slide beneath his fingers.  
  
"Good evening, you mean," she teased.  
  
"Of course," he whispered, a grin on his face. "How are you feeling?"  
  
Anya wanted to skip the small talk and get straight to declaring the fuzzy feeling she felt when her stroked her hair. But she waited some more. A streetlight blinked on outside and cast its light through their window, creating a broken blue light on Spike's pale arms and chest.  
  
"I'm fine," Anya said, barely controlling her excitement. But something in Spike's eyes worried her. Apprehension.  
  
Spike was apprehensive. But it was for the same reason as Anya. Waking up to her soft, moonlight silhouette made him forget everything that had happened five years ago. Despite his cool demeanor, Spike was afraid of what Anya thought about him. What she was thinking about if it wasn't him. What she was thinking earlier, during. Was she thinking about the man from the past? Spike had to know.  
  
"Do you ever," he began nervously. He wasn't sure what to say. But Anya seemed to be waiting patiently for him as he cleared his throat. "Do you ever... Have I told you yet that I'm glad you survived?"  
  
Anya beamed and whispered, "no, say it again."  
  
Spike smiled cautiously and continued, "well, I am, I really am. But... do you ever think of the others? Especially... Xander?"  
  
Not sure what to say, Anya turned away to frown. Spike thought it was to hide her tears.   
  
"Sometimes," she said softly. "But I try not to. I try to live, as you say. Thinking of past loves interfere with my work anyway." She hoped he picked on her emphasis on the word past. "Do you think about her?"  
  
"I try not to but sometimes... my mind wanders to the past a lot. It's hard to keep it in the present," Spike replied thoughtfully and then added quickly, "but it's only when I'm feeling... lonely."  
  
"I know what you mean," Anya replied.  
  
"I know you do."  
  
Outside, music was heard from a far-away club. The out-of-place brown sheets on the bed scratched against them every time they shifted. The night before that went unnoticed but now, in the awkward night after, no detail went unchecked. Spike and Anya felt like they were looking for a reason to leave when all they really wanted was to stay. Neither knew the others true feelings and it made it hard to be around them. They had all these feelings they wanted to say aloud, hoping it would make them real, but they couldn't. Maybe in the past, they would have. But everything was so uncertain now.  
  
Slowly they turned away from each other and collected their clothes. In an ear-piecing silence, they got dressed to go. They got dressed to leave the one person they wanted to be with forever.  
  
"Buffy didn't kill Xander. She didn't kill any of them," Spike said as an after thought to their conversation. "She tried to save them."  
  
"I know," Anya choked out through tears that were veiled by the comforting darkness around them.  
  
Spike nodded. He wanted Anya to look at him, to see his pain without him having to voice it. But she remained looking out the window, hiding her own pain.  
  
"Have I told you yet that I'm glad you survived?" Spike asked when they'd walked silently back to the cliff.  
  
Still fighting tears, Anya nodded softly.   
  
"I'll see you next year, Spike," Anya said quickly before climbing into her car and driving off without any other warning.  
  
"Yes, luv. I'll wait for you. Always."  
****  
  
A/N: Hate it? Love it? Want a sequel or the wasted minutes of you life back? Please review! But be nice... 


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